“Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is. Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph.” (Amos 5:14-15)

Today’s nugget comes from the bible gateway verse-of-the-day. https://www.biblegateway.com/ My wife and I just recently celebrated our wedding anniversary, and she gave me one of the coolest gifts that is very special to me. It was an engraved compass. It was so thoughtful because it combined things that I say with the things I do. I work in the navigation field, and more recently my work has been involved with magnetics and direction finding; and outside of work I often talk about your “compass needle” and what are you using to determine the direction you should travel. I guess those conversations have been more focused on our kids, but still I thought it was a great symbolic gift that incorporated what I do for a living and how I believe that God should be the “needle” that plots out our path. This thought is where today’s scripture from Amos picks up. Sometimes the difference between a good life and a troubled life is as simple as picking the right path. Of course this isn’t always the case (see the book of Job in the bible) but many times we can pin-point the exact decision that put us on the path we follow. Amos is talking about these times in life when there are two roads to follow. Your God compass needle is showing you the way, but you still need to choose and take those steps. And I think that is the major point of today’s nugget. You can know the right path, you can be shown the right path, and sometimes you can even be nudged onto the right path. But in the end, it will come down to your choice. So today, “Seek good, not evil, that you may live [and] the Lord God Almighty will be with you.”